Wet Noises
by JellyfishBlues
Summary: The Kyuubi always knew he could manipulate Naruto's cells. He tests the boundaries, and Naruto is changed, and frightened. She runs, and doesn't know when she'll stop. :: FemNaruto :: Naruto/SC crossover :: Naruto universe only ::
1. Start

Naruto ate a spider for the second time that morning. She wasn't sure why. Wasn't sure how she'd stomached the feel of it bursting between her teeth either. But the urge had come, and it was a compulsion so strong Naruto plucked the fat thing from its web and crunched down, chewed, swallowed. The taste hung in her mouth like smoke; acrid and tangy. And there was a bit of a leg stuck on the back of her tongue like a renegade popcorn kernel.

No one saw, she was thankful for that. Just as no one saw her take a bite from that bird so many years back, or that mantis, or that beetle. Or that worm, or grasshopper… and that dog would be just fine. No one noticed how weak she'd been getting recently, and how pale; and no one had come from the academy to check on her in her absence, she was bitterly thankful for that. It had only been two days, she thought. The third; that was the line.

There were times when Naruto's stomach turned and brought her to her knees, and she felt something real and tangible squirming inside her. But Naruto was sure she was imagining it. Just nerves. Just a vitamin deficiency. She held to that thought until the following night when pain shook her again, and something thick and wet wormed up her throat.

There wasn't time to go for a bucket, and it didn't go back down no matter how hard she swallowed. Naruto curled into herself and gurgled a pile of meat onto her floor. The blood of the stuff clung to her lips and dribbled down her chin. Every coherent thought fled from her, and Naruto could only look. The stuff was thick. It looked like muscle, it had that texture; the stringy, veined look.

And then the pile twitched, and it spread like an octopus pulling along the ground.

Naruto scuttled back. Then nausea struck her again, but Naruto fought it. She panted in exertion. She was too warm, too cold, too weak, too nauseous. Terrified out of her mind. She pressed her hand to her mouth. Pressure built and built in her gut, and then as she tried to hold it down the stuff squirted out her nostrils and through her fingers.

Naruto fell back, knocking her couch over with her shoulder. Then she clung to her nightstand for support, and the thing toppled. Still the stuff gushed from her, more than could possibly fit in her stomach. She could only wait, try and breathe, try not to pass out. When she could finally rest she was weeping, and gasping and coughing and trying to blow the stuff out of her nostrils because she could feel it moving.

"Fuck." Naruto said. "what the fuck what the _fuck_-" So that was what it was like to die. What sort of disease did she have? Something horrible. There was so much of it. Already her floor was covered but for a few patches by the doorway, and it was moving all of it, pulses and twitches shook the stuff like the surface of a pond, like the inside of a stomach. Naruto didn't know what to think, what to do. Cover it up, burn it. The hospital would take her but it would be bitter about it. Like she was wasting their time.

Naruto laid there and panted while her mind raced, and she cleared her throat as she did, and spat out something that was stuck in there. She didn't pay the dime-sized blob mind as it slapped to the floor; and it sunk into the creeping mess before she could get a good look.

There came a knocking at her door, and suddenly she was out of time. Her first impulse was to hide. Hide it, hide herself. Naruto went to her dresser, drew out what clothes she could from the overturned thing and strewed them around. Whoever that would possibly fool it was still better than nothing. More knocking, and more insistent this time.

"Naruto?" It was the Hokage. It would be, she thought. Of course. No use hiding. "I know you're here. Are you still mad?"

About you not visiting for a month? Of course not don't be ridiculous. Naruto pulled off her shirt and scrubbed the purplish goop from her face. She slid another on as she started to the door. She just needed to say hello, send him on his way. Then she would have time to think. Time to panic. Right now there wasn't time for that.

Naruto steeled herself and opened the door; and leaned against the thing to keep steady. The casual demeanor was a pleasant side effect.

Sarutobi looked at her. "You're sick."

"I'm not."

"You're lying."

"You're old."

"May I come in?"

"No."

Sarutobi slid past her at no resistance; she tried to bar his way but a bout of lightheadedness nearly knocked her over.

Her apartment looked like the aftermath of a tragic furniture store explosion; the couch on its side near the doorway, desk a few feet from the bed, clothes everywhere. The sink was cluttered with plates and plastic containers with peel-back tops.

"I was worried about you." Sarutobi trudged through the mess, heading for the kitchen. He didn't comment on anything, but he had to have noticed the smell, Naruto thought. And the feel of that stuff beneath his feet. "Am worried about you. You don't get sick."

"I'm not sick," Naruto said from the doorway, "I'm just tired. I need some sleep, so you can leave, go do old people things, whatever. I'll be fine here."

Sarutobi didn't need to see her tremble, he could hear it in her voice. "No you won't. Now get in bed, I'll make you some tea and clean up a bit."

"I can take care of myself." Naruto closed the door and stumbled over to the couch. It was hard to stay standing, her head kept lolling; darkness crept in from the corners of her eyes. "I'm a big girl, you don't need to baby me."

"There's nothing wrong with needing help."

"I know." Said Naruto; her voice sounded foreign to her, distant. "If I need help I'll be sure to ask for it."

"No you won't." Sarutobi set a kettle to boil and started on the tower of dishes and empty ramen cups in the sink. "You're too stubborn. But that's the best part of having family. You don't need to ask-"

"-Or even _want_ their help. They'll just walk in, uninvited." Naruto found herself at the edge of the overturned couch, arms shaking, and her bed out of reach. She was so tired.

"Do you need help getting to your bed?"

Naruto said, "touch me and I cough down your throat."

"If you aren't in bed in ten seconds I'm carrying you there, throat cough be damned."

"I'll scream rape," Naruto said, the weight of her own voice nearly knocking her over, "I'll rip my shirt and cram dust in my vagina."

Sarutobi laughed hoarsely; glad to fall into the old swing of things. "Who are they going to believe? Six seconds."

"I can be very convincing. Help officer! This old man has fallen in me and can't get out! And he won't shut up about his grandson!"

Sarutobi smiled. "You have your mother's mouth."

"Now he said I have pretty lips!"

Jiraiya would love her, unfortunately. "Time's up." He tossed the last of the ramen cups and lids into the trash and turned. "Hold still."

Naruto reared back and launched herself onto her bed in a nauseating display of ragdoll physics. Then she groaned as a wave of nausea swept over her, and hurriedly gulped down the warmth surging up her throat.

"Now you just need to get under the covers." Sarutobi said. "Think you can manage?"

"Yes." She said. 'Just leave.' He heard. Naruto flopped around for a bit. Sarutobi watched with a grimace.

"Naruto, please. There's a difference between self-reliance and being unreasonable."

The kettle started making ominous noises. Naruto flapped at the stove. "Go make the tea. I can take care of myself." She got up to all fours, wobbling like a newborn calf. She still couldn't get a grip on the comforter, all her strength slowly siphoning from her extremities; instead of her fingers it was her stomach that clenched until her spine arched up, every vertebra visible through the fabric of her shirt.

"Naruto, really. Let me help you."

"Don't touch me." Please just leave.

Sarutobi sighed. She was mad. Clearly sick. Very much like her mother. "Here." He reached under her arms to help her up.

The kettle whistled.

"Get _away_!" It was the very real desperation in her voice that gave him pause. Even as he dropped his hands she wouldn't look in his direction, shoulders shaking, hands still trying to grip the corner of the sheets. She adjusted her hands and lost her balance, teetering forwards and catching herself on her elbows, then fought back up to her palms. She looked so small. He didn't know what to say. Apologize. Laugh. Anything to break the tension somehow. The kettle screamed on from the stove, louder than before.

"Naruto, I..."

"Go make the tea." Naruto said. "I'll be fi-" a fistful of blood and what looked like ground beef gushed out of her mouth and pooled between her hands. "Don't worry," she assured Sarutobi as he stood there, struck dumb, "I do that all the time. It helps cleanse... toxins-" another mouthful. "Ulg. I feel so much better. Fresh, like a spring breeze." Another mouthful. The mess spread on her sheets, the edges reaching out and grabbing hold of the fabric.

"Oh my god." Sarutobi immediately regretted his choice of words. The kettle went up an octave, he pinned it to the wall with a kunai. He left the burner on. It could wait.

Naruto lurched one last time, hacked and spit up a glob of meat before clearing her throat. She didn't speak yet; face burning.

"Naruto…" He began uncertainly, "This isn't something you can keep to yourself. Talk to me."

Naruto shuddered, shoulders folding in until she all but vanished into the folds of her shirt. "I don't know. I'm afraid." she said in the smallest voice Sarutobi had ever heard, and he hated few things more than seeing Naruto cry. He remembered why he took his job. "And I can't... I..."

The mess on her bed continued spreading like a spilled bucket of paint, falling over the fabric in a gentle wave of grasping threads. It reached the edge of the bed; covering the sheets, mattress, frame; then it oozed down and vanished beneath the sea of clothing.

"It will be alright." Sarutobi said even though he felt it wouldn't. "I'll help you up."

"Don't touch me!" Naruto couldn't have seen his hands reaching for her, eyes focused on the way the purple mess crept over her bed but left space around her hands. Just looking at it made her sick to her stomach and she didn't want to throw up again. Still she couldn't look away, there was something magnetic in the way the stuff pulsed; the unmistakable throb of veins and blood and life, she lusted for it and was disgusted with herself. "Something is wrong with me," she said, "I don't know what… If it can be caught..."

Sarutobi didn't need to think. He said, "I am willing to take that risk," grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her from the bed; her handprints vanishing all too quickly under the spreading sheet of purple; still pulsing, growing, edges clawing up the walls. Now he knew why Naruto hadn't been to the academy in days. He knew why every article of clothing she owned was laid down from wall to wall. He knew, but it only made him bitter with himself – but he knew better than to blame himself. Still he snapped how he should have known even though he couldn't have, how he should have prioritized even though he had. He had done everything he could. Everything wasn't enough.

He turned off the stove and shut the door behind him. He made two steps before Naruto went limp.

* * *

Voices, sounds, colors. A bitter sort of hospitality as Sarutobi's forced smile passed across her field of vision like the sun across the sky. Naruto told him not to worry, but her lips were dry, her voice shaky; by the time her mouth moved he was already gone, and even if he had stayed to listen her voice would have been too soft to hear.

A man shook his head and drew back pale and wordless, the flesh of his neck wrinkling around the collar of his white coat. Naruto tried to open her eyes and pair a face to the dull scratch of hospital-issue scrubs. She made to ask how long she was out, but instead of words a slick warmth spilled from her lips and down her neck and-

Too much noise. Naruto cracked her eyes. Faces skittered about overhead. She could hear them talking but the words came too fast. She asked them to talk slower, but when she spoke something rattled deep in her throat. Naruto dragged a probing hand up, across the scratchy fabric of her gown to her face and clawed at the plastic tube she found there. Loud again; a hand, cold and weathered pressed to her wrist as Sarutobi's pained smile circled overhead once again. She asked him to stop looking at her like that, that pinched, crinkly-infuriatingly-concerned expression, but he only shook his head.

Naruto's eyes suddenly grew heavy, and she rested them for a moment. When she opened them again the faces were gone. Something beeped steadily. It was remarkable just how much it annoyed her. Naruto made to reach out and claw the snooze button but swiped through open air, and her arm came down to rest against the aluminum rails of the gurney. It wasn't enough to strain, because try as she might Naruto could not lift her arm back to her side. Her strength slowly drained away and Naruto slept.

* * *

It was the following night, with a half-moon circling overhead, that Naruto woke. She felt odd: none of the queasiness, none of the shaking hands, stomach clawing up her throat and splitting pains in her sides. Instead everything was muffled, as if a sheet was drawn over her head. The crickets that every night called to her from the village walls were muted. In their place her own breath rang in her ears, and though she felt calm it was labored, heaving.

Naruto felt good. That pressure that had every day built and built behind her eyes was gone, and in its place a deep calm. The thin hospital bedsheet rolled down off her, and the gurney shrunk, the floor moved beneath her feet as if of its own volition. Then Naruto was out, outside beneath the moon, toes curling in the dirt. Something was calling her.

Her legs took her forward, to her apartment complex, up the stairs to her door.

Naruto stepped inside. Purple flesh covered everything; the floor, wall, ceiling; and the place was sunken in as though it were being eaten, like the stuff covered was being eaten. In the center where her bed once rested a mass the size of a fridge rose up; round and pulsing-white like the chrysalis of an insect. Then it split open like a flower, and the innards were covered in cruel teeth and whipping tendrils.

Something inside her called out; her eyes glazed over; her head spinning in the sweet smell of sulfur and iron.

Naruto moved on, feet sinking into the floor. Her mind crept back. Slowly. She only knew it was bad, at first. The vaguest sense of fear washed down her spine and she slowed, but didn't stop. She couldn't stop. The flower-thing was closer now, and she could see it twitching; could see the spot in the middle where she would stand, and spikes poked up from there too.

Naruto didn't want to go there. But she couldn't stop. She stepped into the center; the spikes bloomed from the tops of her feet. The petals began to close. Naruto blinked. A gasp of air came from her as she tried to speak. Scream, shout, anything to release the terror building to an unbearable crescendo. Her mind raced, her thoughts grew clearer; then the thing closed over her head.

* * *

Naruto wasn't done when Sarutobi found her the following morning. It was something she knew. She couldn't feel her body, couldn't form a thought. Still she knew whatever was being done to her, whatever was being changed or bled or eaten; it needed a little longer.

The instant Sarutobi first took a kunai to the flesh of her cocoon Naruto screamed. There was no soothing veil of darkness, no floating outside her body. She crashed down and felt everything. As he peeled the cocoon back and pulled her out it was her voice in his ears. For every stab, every strip of meat removed, every ounce of fluid drained her voice rose a decibel like he was killing her, and it tore him up inside.

When he finally reached Naruto he was crying. He didn't feel the chitinous spikes driving into his palms as he grabbed hold of her, nor the heat of the fluid raising smoke from his arms. He had never felt so useless as he did then, and as he grit his teeth and squared his shoulders and pulled for all he was worth he swore he would never let her cry again.

But he would break that promise, to himself and to her, because as Naruto slid out piece by piece into the light of the open door at his back Sarutobi realized that he was out of his depth. He pulled his left hand from the spikes on her shoulder, his right from the spikes that rose from her forearm. The purple material beneath his feet absorbed his blood like a sponge, but Sarutobi didn't notice. He looked at what Naruto had become.

What skin remained covered her face, though darker, dirtied. Her hair that had reminded him so much of Minato was brown; the strands thick and segmented like the legs of a spider. All else was bared musculature and the cruel spikes and plates of an insectile exoskeleton. On her back were wings with no feathers or skin, only a framework of thick jointed bone.

She was still screaming, he realized. But what could he possibly say.

Slowly the light returned to her eyes. She looked down and saw the bone coating her chest. She raised her hands to her eyes, and told her fingers to curl and found angry claws balling up instead.

Sarutobi shook from his daze. "Naruto."

She snapped to him; the sclera of her eyes black as tar, the pupil a burning red. Her chest was still heaving, lips forming words with no sound.

"You're safe." He said.

Naruto shoved him off her, ten gouges sprouting in Sarutobi's chest as the man stumbled. She shuffled back and worked herself up the wall, her eyes focused on her left hand as she clenched and unclenched her fingers. "Wha… I…" Even her voice had changed, two tones now, the first her own, the other deeper, warbling - and she knew it too for the way she jerked back with a hand to her throat. "What is – happened – to me. My. My – I…"

She was walking the fine line between fury and hysteria. Sarutobi had one chance to get his tone correct. "Calm down."

"No!" He failed. "I! I – I need…"

Round two. "Calm down, Naruto. It will all be okay."

"S - Shut up!" Something hit him, forced him to take a step back. Cracks grew up the walls, a bit of dust crumbled down from the ceiling where the purple stuff hadn't covered. "Don't talk like – Get out!"

He took a step towards her and she pressed back.

"No get out get out GET OUT!"

The walls peeled back. The ceiling reeled up as though yanked by a giant. Sarutobi realized he was flying, the sky and village spun again and again, wind howled in his ears, and then suddenly he felt cool dirt at his back. He clawed himself up and stood, dazed; ears ringing, patches of red blooming on his clothes. He started down the street.

His mouth wasn't working. Neither were his eyes, they kept going out of focus. Sarutobi lurched over and steadied himself on the window of a flowershop, blood smearing in the shape of his palms as he went further, fighting to keep his head up. He marked his progress by the texture of the wall; first glass, then plaster, then cheap paint that crackled and flaked under his fingernails. He recognized a voice then, and found himself honing in on it in a trance.

* * *

Kakashi seemed like he always did. Bored, laidback, and just a little tired. He was also painfully hungover but it was difficult for someone who wasn't familiar with him to tell. Across from him sat Anko, and Anko looked just like she always did as well; half-nude, insane and a little pissed off. They had yet to say a single word to each other, their mutual friends had gone to the bathroom and left them at their table, staring at each other vacantly, painfully aware that they'd yet to speak to or interact with each other even once.

"They've been gone a long time." Kakashi said.

"... yeah." Anko said.

Quiet again. Still Kakashi didn't want to give any ground, felt like he'd be losing something if he left. Some contest someone hadn't told him about. At another table a few patrons went up cheering about something. They both groaned.

"Oh my head." He said.

Anko made a face. "Hangover buddies?"

Kakashi raised his tall glass of water, she matched the gesture and they both cringed as the glasses clinked in the center of the table.

"Down the hatch." Kakashi drank the whole glass through his mask.

Anko watched. "Don't it taste like shirt if you do that?"

"Everything tastes like shirt." Kakashi said. Anko snorted at how serious the scratch of his voice sounded, then downed her own glass.

"...They've been gone a really long time." Anko said.

Kakashi caught himself nodding off, and he gently shook himself awake. "Got up at seven for this."

"Kurenai got me up at six."

"Nn." Kakashi paled at the thought, but only slightly. Most of his blood was busy duking it out in his eyeballs. "Sorry."

"Yeah... Shit, me too." Anko flagged down two more glasses of water from a passing waitress. "Was havin' a good dream."

"So..." Kakashi began. "You and Kurenai. Friends, huh?"

"The bestest." Anko said, and going by the tone of her voice she was moments from vomiting. "and... Asuma. You. Friends?"

"Ah. Well." Kakashi counted down from five, watching a wave of nausea crash down over Anko. She weathered it well. "Hell. I guess. You know how it is. Don't want to be the one to..."

Anko nodded. "The one to say 'hey we're friends.' But maybe y'er not. Not really."

Kakashi drank another glass. Shook his head. "Too early."

"Fuckin' a."

Kurenai came back and took her seat. Kakashi and Anko gave her wide-awake demeanor various degrees of stinkeye.

"Damn normals." Anko said.

"Hn." Kakashi made a noncommittal noise.

Then Asuma was back, and he took his seat next to Kurenai. He read the air, shot a glance at Kurenai that she returned.

"So." Asuma said. "We..."

"Have." Kurenai picked up, "something to say. Uh..."

Kurenai trailed off as the Hokage of all people staggered over into a spare seat and plopped down, then stared ahead blankly; not as if he were looking at something in the distance, but more as if the part of his brain that synchronized eye movement was missing, and his moving parts had reverted to factory presets by default. The front of his ceremonial robes were stained deep red, his palms dripping.

"Holy shit." Anko said. "Am I still drunk?"

"I don't know." Kakashi said, blinking exaggeratedly. If he'd been given an indication that something horrible had happened from _any_ of his other senses he would have taken it more seriously.

Asuma jerked to life. He stood and went to Sarutobi's side. "What happened? _Dad_?"

Sarutobi's mouth opened, he gurgled something.

A swath of destruction five feet wide carved through Anko's favorite restaurant, courtesy of a chunk of roof that had appeared as if fired from a railgun. Anko would remember those three men at the table by the door, because until that point she had never seen a person reduced to a mist of flailing limbs before; even more unsettling than that were the oblivious looks on their faces. Adrenaline shot through Anko and Kakashi like a bolt of lightning.

Already Kakashi was up with the Hokage in a fireman's carry, "Kurenai, help whoever you can here! Asuma, I'll get him somewhere safe, you and Anko move out."

Asuma didn't question him. Then they were out in the open air to the rooftops. Asuma saw a plume of dust in the distance, near the residential district. Along the way there were holes in structures left and right, pieces of drywall protruding like shafts of great arrows. It was a warzone when they arrived. The top two stories of an apartment complex were gone, the surrounding houses in various states of devastation; and in the center of that destruction a pile of flesh that Anko knew was never a person: no clothes, no bones. Just a bunch of purplish meat. It couldn't have been a person.

Another plume of dust rose up at the village wall north of their position. The found a hole in the wall eight six wide, the ground clear of any shrapnel, and a man near the impromptu exit. At least probably a man, the body was slumped over in the dirt, looking like it had fallen through barbed wire until there was not a piece of skin left - and Anko had to admit, it was one thing to know the average man had slightly more than a gallon of blood in his body; it was quite another to _see_ it. Already a circle around the body five feet wide had crusted over with a dark brown grit.

Asuma knew the procedure well. He sort of wished he didn't. He could see huge chunks of the village wall out there in the forest.

"Anko." he called to her, "cordon off the body."

"Oh god don't yell."

"I'll wait for reinforcements and move out."

"No one's coming." Kakashi said as he arrived on the scene. "Hokage's at the hospital with a bare bones guard. AnBu are all over the place. Couldn't find another tracker and we're running out of time."

He tossed Anko a large pill and she crammed it into her mouth the moment she caught its color scheme. "I love you."

"Asuma, you're staying back. Try and clean up this mess."

"Yeah, fine." _Thanks_.

"Anko." He glanced at her. "You ready?"

The pill was working. Anko couldn't nod hard enough.

"Let's go."

* * *

_an: hmm... yeah. edit(3/19/13): True. I need to pick a tone. Fixed, more or less. I'll try and reign in the fart jokes.  
_


	2. Run

Why had he attacked her. That was all Naruto could think about as she ran. She hadn't meant to kill him. Just stop him, push him back. But he flew apart at the seams, unraveled like an old sweater. She remembered Sarutobi flipping back and cringed. He was fine. He would be fine.

The forest seemed darker than usual. Spring-thick canopies screamed by as Naruto lurched on into the sea of green, wings clipping through branches and trunks left and right. Her head was pounding, she could feel blood dripping from her nose. It hadn't stopped since she'd shoved through the village wall. She tried to think. She just needed to move. Put some distance between her and the village. Find a quiet place to curl up. Find a stream to wash the slime of that egg off her body. Find something to fill the growing void in her stomach.

Naruto pushed on until moonlight washed across the forest. She'd intended to run until she couldn't move another inch but that moment of blissful exhaustion never came, and she was left with manic energy crackling in her stomach as she leaped to the forest floor, and her feet sank into the soil. She'd had time to think but nothing was clearer. Naruto only knew that her stomach was killing her.

Naruto spent a short while looking for a meal; though she didn't know how, she knew which direction to go, where to step. She could feel something, a presence. Soon she came across an elk resting against a tree, ears swiveling. Naruto crawled along a branch and drew closer. Twisting pain in her stomach made her grit her teeth. Her mouth watered. A branch caught on the wings on her back, cut loose and fell to the forest floor. The elk spooked.

Naruto buried her hands in its side, the wings stabbed into the thing of their own volition. Then the smell of iron hit her nose and an unbearable hunger crashed over her. She tore into the elk. It made a pitiful racket in the seconds it lasted.

Minutes passed. Naruto tore off strips with her teeth, crammed fistfuls into her mouth, slurped the marrow from bones; anything to end that hunger. The impulse faded slowly. The taste didn't bother her. Not the texture or the smell. Instead she couldn't stop. Then when the passion finally faded Naruto found herself hovering over the remains of a mutilated elk, and there was blood everywhere, all over her. The hunger was gone, but now there was a squirming weight in its place.

She felt nothing for the elk. Vaguely; far back in her mind she was revolted and terrified but it was so small and quiet the night wind through the trees drowned it out. Still Naruto knew she should feel something. She searched for it. Tried to muster it up. Nothing came. And the elk was such a mess… She thought about Konoha, and fell back to rest on her knees as she did, hands at her sides. She remembered that man at the wall.

He was on patrol. Then she ran for the wall. He was shocked, awed. He reacted in anger and she defended herself in fear. Naruto didn't want him to kill him, but that was the extent of her feelings on the matter. Just her own words in her head, defending a sentiment that she didn't truly feel. What a mess she'd made. Poor bastard got everywhere.

Naruto should be feeling something, she figured. They'd gone over it in the academy once or twice, but always lightly, always carefully. She never could take Iruka seriously. A man like him, no. Too softspoken, too worried. Probably why he'd become a teacher in the first place. Yeah he _would_ be terrified hilt-deep in some guy's neck. Yeah he _would_ remember that guy's name. He remembered entire classes' damn names - that was nothing special.

There were wolves a halfmile back but Naruto knew they were there. She acknowledged them absently. Why wasn't she feeling anything? She killed that bastard dead. Deader than dead.

"Shit."

Her stomach rumbled. Something started squirming in her gut, working up her throat.

"oh shit."

Pain, then. Felt like spikes carving up her insides. Her throat bulged, she curled up, clutched at herself. She heard thin bone and cartilage popping and shifting, and then the head of an insect was in her mouth, its pincers jutting out between her teeth. And it started squirming out, pincers clacking, millipede-body scrambling for purchase against the muscle of her esophagus. Naruto felt herself go numb at the sight of the thing waving in the night air, and she grabbed it by the body and tore it from her mouth. Blood welled up her throat from the gashes it left.

It squirmed in her fist, and wet noises gurgled out of the thing, but it didn't bite at her, and it didn't try to wiggle free. Naruto looked. Her stomach tensed in distaste and revulsion, she shook, and she almost fell.

Wolves rumbled from behind her, drawn by the elk. They'd been after it a while. Naruto released a breath, tossed the worm-thing aside. It skittered into to the pile of elk.

"Wrong day." Naruto said, and spat. Good that they'd come. Anything to distract her. She remembered Sarutobi's face. Surprise, revulsion. She didn't think she'd be able to take him being disgusted by her. Anyone but him.

The wolves closed around her, and one slightly bigger and meaner than the others erupted from the brush to her side. If it had been quicker, quieter, and if Naruto hadn't known it were there, it could have killed her, bit down on her neck – one of the few places not covered with jagged bone. But a wing whipped out through the wolf, and the thing fell to pieces. Already hunger rose in her. Naruto ignored it. Food wouldn't stay down, she assumed as much. No more worms, no more goop. Not if she could help it.

Another wolf, smaller, the coat worn and ragged launched from behind. Naruto knew it would leap before she heard the crunch of dirt. She moved her wings on her own this time. They meshed behind her back and the wolf slid apart. Something in the air changed; one wolf fell back, and the others still standing followed instantly.

Naruto didn't pursue. It was too much. She just wanted to go home. Shoot the shit with Sarutobi. Pretend to listen to Iruka. Laugh with Ayame and her father. But she couldn't. That man at the wall was dead. And her apartment was gone. And Sarutobi was flying back, bloodied and terrified. And she… What even was she.

The worm was gone when she looked over. A film had built up over the remains of the elk, and things were swirling around inside: Liquids, chunks of bone, a strip of heart-tissue chugged along the film and adhered there, veins swelled up along the surface.

Naruto only watched. She didn't want to kill it, whatever it was. She almost did, almost wanted to, but she couldn't get angry at it: whatever it was, however disgusting it was. She wasn't like that, didn't want to be like that. The pain was just a memory already anyways. Naruto sat and watched, and thought. She wondered what she would do, where she would go. She didn't know. But they had to be after her, she knew that much. Still every time she went to leave, put more distance between her and the village she felt herself drawn back to that sac. Soon she didn't bother trying.

The heart piece grew, fluids mixed, more veins pressed out. Soon the sac was swelling up like a balloon, and the contents pulsed and rattled the skin of the thing. Liquid muscle poured out from the base and over the dead wolves, sunk down into the earth. Clouds passed, wind blew, the moon circled overhead and down the other side. The sac was taller than her then, and she was standing and prodding at the membrane, feeling the contents toss around inside and brush against her palms.

The sun crept up, and orange light glimmered wetly against the surface. It burst. Naruto stepped back. The membrane flew apart, sheets of it cast around the clearing. A wave of glop rolled down over her feet. In the middle, Naruto saw with a vague, detached sense of disbelief, an abomination uncurled and rose. The thing looked like the offspring of a snake and a praying mantis, but it was seven feet tall and all glistening muscle and bone.

It turned to her. Naruto's mouth fell open. It slithered towards her, its one ton frame leaving a deep furrow in the dirt. One night? Not even one night was enough time for that thing to grow? Naruto backpedaled as it closed; she wasn't afraid, or repulsed, and that was what startled her. The morning light caught on the thing's teeth, on the slaver that oozed down them, and then it gnashed its jaw and Naruto saw the tips of bundles of spikes hidden inside.

A tree pressed between her shoulderblades and stopped Naruto's retreat. The thing closed, scythlike arms resting on either side of her, and it leaned in, breath hot on her face. Naruto felt an unwarranted sense of familiarity with it, a closeness she couldn't explain and it left her fumbling.

"Well…" Naruto said, breathless, "aren't you… pretty." She reached out and ran her hand along its jaw, her wings twitching as she did. It bowed its crest and leaned into her hand. It felt like she was petting a dog. It was the posture; the submissive, almost eager posture. Like they could play fetch. Like she could find a good book and a fire and it would curl up at her feet.

Then Naruto remembered. She couldn't feel anyone after her, not like she'd felt the wolves. But she had to keep moving. They'd been after her in force after the wall and just couldn't keep up - but she'd crippled the Kage and left a trail of trimmed branches behind her. No chance they'd thrown up their hands and gone back. They'd attack on sight: for what she'd done, for how she looked. Optimistically she'd get a sentence out.

Naruto ducked out around the snake-mantis. She caught a hint of dark clouds pouring over the horizon, keeping pace with the rising sun. Then she realized that she had no idea where she was. The trees were sharper, dirt harder, air mustier like there was standing water just out of sight. Then again that could have just been the offal strewn around the place. Naruto looked up and sighed.

"I…" Naruto caught herself talking to the snake-mantis. She remembered how that thing had come about and her throat clammed up. "I. Let's… Move. Come on. If you want."

Naruto headed for the rainclouds, really hoping that they were rainclouds. She'd yet to find a stream to wash in, and though the smell of herself didn't bother her the stickiness was driving her mad. She tried to not leave a trail this time. She stuck to the ground, experimenting with ways to not leave such a sharp footprint. Her toes kept cutting into things without her meaning to, even under the gentlest pressure. Naruto tried to be positive: at least she'd never be without decent footing.

The air grew thicker. The clouds grew closer. Naruto turned to her wings. She curled them around her and prodded at them as she walked. Then she flapped them, hoping more than she'd hoped for rain that she'd take off into the sky. But that didn't happen. Slashes appeared in the dirt around her, nothing else, and she sighed wistfully at what could have been. _If only, _she said to no one. Probably for the best: she would inevitably kill herself in a completely unavoidable loop-de-loop-corkscrew hybrid maneuver attempt and that would put a major damper on things.

A peal of thunder brought a smile to her face. Rain. Angry rain, now that the clouds had gotten themselves in formation. They were crashing closer in an ominous grey wave, and would be atop her in less than ten minutes. Good. Naruto nodded to herself as she carried on. She'd wash off, find a quiet hole to curl up and cry. And think, whichever came first. She thought about the snake/mantis and it emerged from her left as though summoned. It had a fawn in its mouth, and there was a foot-long spike through the fawn's head.

Naruto blinked. It looked so expectant. Or maybe she was reading into it too much. "Uh. Good job."

The snakemantis said and did nothing else, only kept pace, fawn flopping in its mouth as they carried on into the approaching gloom.

Then the storm was on them, and Naruto had the sneaking suspicion that the rain was ice cold, that it should have been. But she wasn't feeling it. She scrubbed herself clean, wincing as she became intimately familiar with her body and very aware of how technically naked she was. Now her breasts were red membranes with the weirdest honeycomb texture. She spent a long moment squeezing them before she remembered an awkward childhood moment with Sarutobi and stopped. Bone and tough connective tissue covered her other important bits, and the mechanical implications puzzled her until she remembered the worm and forcefully dropped the issue.

Her hair bothered her in particular, the stuff moved as she tried to run her hands through it, tumbling over her fingers like giant floppy spider legs and she couldn't help the girlish shriek that came from her. Then she was so painfully aware of it she could feel it dancing against her back.

Snake-mantis waited. Maybe it stood guard, it could have been. Or it could have drifted off. Naruto didn't pay it much mind. She kept catching bits of her reflection in puddles and flinching away. Her eyes were burning and it was damn creepy.

Naruto was done washing soon, and she started off again, looking for some abandoned cabin, some half-fallen tree, some naturally-occurring pillow fort to hide in. The trees grew thicker, the rain grew lighter as the fists of the storm beat past her. She faded back into her own thoughts, thinking about sad things and warm meals.

Naruto stepped around a tree and came face to face with a girl no older than eight, in weathered overalls and goulashes splashing around in the rain. They were so close Naruto could smell that peculiar kid-smell that all little kids carry. Vaguely bad. The vaguest bad. Naruto vowed to try and pay attention to her surroundings from then on. Especially considering she should have felt the kid a quarter mile back.

Naruto's mouth opened. 'Don't scream,' she considered saying in that moment. She also considered 'bring me your young _I hunger_' but this probably wasn't the time for jokes and she wasn't in the mood.

The girl's eyes lit up. She smiled. "You really came?" She said. "For real? For _real_ real?"

"…Uh." Came from Naruto's mouth. Snake-mantis emerged from behind her, half a fawn hanging from its mouth. "Uhhh."

"Yes this is perfect!" The girl hopped around. "You – oh my – I just. You. Me! Come, now! This is yes! Please thank you!" She grabbed Naruto's hand, and Naruto had a small seizure keeping her claws from tearing the girl's hand. "I – you have to come inside! I'll. We. Mah'll get back - some food up soon, and. Yes."

"Uhhh!" Naruto said. A cabin emerged up ahead, small and quaint and clearly made by someone who knew how to build a roof. Off to the side and further back a large shed was half-hidden by brush. "You. Were. Um. Expecting me?"

"I was praying for you!" The girl said. "Every night. Every night! But now you're here! You're really here!"

Naruto felt powerless in that way that only small children can make someone feel powerless. She was too young to disappoint, but also too young to treat like a coherent being capable of logic and basic math. Naruto tittered around trying to think of the best phrasing for 'you are making a huge mistake' as they drew closer to the cabin. Still it distracted her, and she was thankful for that. For however long it would last. "You were praying for – for me? _Me_ me? Why?"

"For you to come and kill my dad!" The girl said.

"Time to go." Naruto said, and sunk her feet down. The girl stopped like a dog caught at the end of a leash, jerking back surprised and inexplicably betrayed. She wouldn't let go of Naruto's hand.

"But I called you!" The girl said,"I prayed! Every night! You have to don't you?"

"I don't have to do shit." Naruto worked at prying her hand lose without getting extra fingers in the process. "Now leggo."

"But – but! I! I did the – I did the thing! The circle, the stuff! You _have_ _to_ have to!"

The rain must have been louder than Naruto thought because no one had emerged from the cabin to investigate their unholy racket. "I got no clue what you're talking about."

"Aren't you a demon?" The girl said, grabbing with both hands to keep Naruto from escaping, "from the bad place?"

Naruto cringed. "I. _No_, I'm not a demon. And that's very rude."

"But… The red eyes. The wings. And the sharp things. Are you sure?"

"Well. Pretty sure. I guess. Shit I dunno. I don't think I am."

"But you even sound all evil…" The girl trailed off pathetically, and her shoulders drooped as she moped. She released Naruto. "Well now what…"

Naruto looked at the forest, where she could easily vanish. Then back at the cabin, and down the girl shuffling her boots in the mud. She sighed. "Well… Talk. What's up."

It was like a switch flipped and the girl was glowing. "You mean you'll do it?"

"_No_. Goddamn. Probably no. Just." Naruto drew her hand across her forehead. The kid would catch a cold if she stayed out much longer. "Go see if your mom's in. If she isn't we'll go inside and clear up this mess. Else we'll talk out here."

"She isn't here!" The girl said, apparently only capable of whispering and yelling. "she'll be back in a while, but she isn't here now! And he's asleep! Come on!" Then Naruto was tugged inside, snake-mantis couldn't fit through the door, and waited out in the rain, vacantly gnawing on a fawn-skull.

The rain muffled as the door closed. The inside was lit by flickering candles. They were in the kitchen, and Naruto could hear distant snoring.

"Come on, here." The girl whispered now, and pulled Naruto to a seat at the dining table. It was an awkward sit; Naruto's wings kept her from leaning back comfortably, and something about the place made her feel like she was permanently moments from knocking something over.

"Uh. Do… " Naruto began as the girl floundered around the kitchen, seemingly looking for something, "do you not like your father?"

"He's mean." She said. "Mean and smelly."

Naruto remembered she was talking to a kid. A _kid_ kid. "Does he do… Bad things?"

"He does stupid things." The girl said. "and he makes mom sad."

"Not, er. Hurt?" Naruto could see her own hands resting on the table. They looked gnarly. She felt snake-mantis roam away into the forest, having caught the smell of something. And shit this was the most uncomfortable conversation she'd ever had.

"Sad. _Sad_ sad." The girl said. "I don't like it. I don't like mom sad."

"Do they yell?"

"Sometimes." The girl said. "For dinner, and for go to bed. And bears and boogibears."

Naruto was sure there was a story there. "They don't yell _at each other_? I mean… Mad yelling?"

The girl didn't find whatever she was looking for, and finally took a seat at the table. "They don't yell. They talk, and say bad things. And it makes mom sad. And I don't like it."

Naruto let out a breath and wondered what the hell was she doing there. "Look. Kid. From what you just told me, I don't think he's a bad, uh… person."

The girl puffed up.

"Stuff gets… Complicated. I think." Naruto scratched her cheek. "It's… I think they still. Er. Care, about each other. You know?"

"No."

"Fucking kids. I didn't mean to say that out loud – the point is. Just. Talk. Talk this sh…" Naruto sighed. "talk this stuff out. With them. Alright?"

"Why?"

"Don't you start that _why_ shit with me. Just promise you'll talk to them, okay?"

"… Okay." The girl said, looking down.

"And _actually mean it_." Naruto said. "Round two, come on. Again."

They locked eyes. The girl's face scrunched up. "Fine. I promise."

"That's _better_," Naruto said, "and no more summoning the devil. I'm serious that never ever works out. If I was a demon, I would have like, taken your toes and made pancakes or something-"

The girl _eeped_. "But I need my toes!" She said, "I _need_ them!"

Naruto frantically shushed her into silence. "Promise you won't try that again?"

The girl nodded.

"Good." Naruto said, and stood, careful not to cut or tip or otherwise interact with anything accidentally. "I'm gonna go now, okay?"

"Okay." The girl said, slightly mopey.

"Don't be sad – there are puddles goddamn everywhere. Splash extra hard today, yeah?"

"Yes!"

Naruto shushed her again. "Well. Uh… bye."

She turned to leave, and was nearly to the door when a weight caught on her hip. The little girl was there when Naruto glanced down, face dangerously close to one of the jagged spikes curving up from her hips, and _all of her_ far too close to her wing. Naruto had a mini panic attack.

"Thank you not-demon." The girl said.

Naruto groaned. "Eww gedoff me." She carefully extracted the girl and nudged her back, hands on the girls' shoulders.

The door opened. A middle aged woman caught sight of them. Naruto saw her, saw her eyes drift over her daughter and settle on Naruto's hands, and her wings, and she knew there was nothing she could say. Not really. She pulled back.

"Juuko!" The woman's cry seemed to shake the cabin. A commotion came from the other room, a burly man issued forth from the doorway as though he'd been fired from it. Naruto turned and saw his face, saw the bags under his eyes. There was a moment of tense indecision.

The little girl made a noise, a bead of red welled on her cheek.

The woman dashed for the girl, the man came at Naruto, drew up a chair like a shield and pressured her to the door.

"Please!" The woman said.

"Leave, now!" The man said. "G-get out!"

Naruto had raised her hands palms up without realizing. She dropped them now, lips moving but not making any sound. 'I'm not going to hurt you,' she wanted to say. 'I'm not a monster. Don't worry. Your daughter is fine if slightly stupid.' But nothing came out. It hurt to be feared. And they wouldn't listen, Naruto knew. She wouldn't in their place. No point in trying to explain herself. Still maybe she could help.

Naruto looked to the little girl. "You're lucky they're here." Then she left, and shut the door behind her.

They would be fine, Naruto knew. They'd talk, soon. Make sure the girl was alright, fuss over her scratch and then they'd clear the air, and then they'd laugh because they were alive, and they'd never quite believe the girl's story about the kind not-demon that said bad words. They'd tell her not to talk to strange monsters.

Naruto shook her head. The rain washed down her face, through her hair. Snake-mantis came to her side.

She moved on.

* * *

_an: sorry, been doing a whole lot of nothing lately. bleugh. Well, you know the drill. suggestions, criticism, whathaveyou, happy to hear it.  
_

_Edit 3/28/13: a few minor edits._


	3. The Taki Bandits

Anko wasn't talking. That was alright with Kakashi, he didn't feel like talking either. The ease of keeping after their quarry had lulled him off near sleep, compounded by the fact that they'd been on foot for some fifteen odd hours with reststops few and far between. If they didn't catch a break soon, find some indication they'd finally gained some ground he'd have to turn them back home. Call it quits, throw up his hands, admit that there was someone who could outpace and outlast him. Otherwise they'd be in no condition to take down whatever it was they were after. He couldn't shake the suspicion that it kept leaving those cuts on purpose, leading them along by the nose.

Anko was back behind him ever approaching death-by-exhaustion, though she didn't show it; this probably wasn't the first time she'd grunted out a hangover. Now that he thought on it that was probably why she wasn't talking. Feeling it appropriate, he broke out his sole ration; a packet of soup crackers, and split it between them on-the-fly. He regretted eating his five crackers instantly, as every drop of moisture in his mouth absorbed into them and turned the crackers into a small, angry rock that fought his esophagus on the way down.

Then rain crashed over them; normally a death knell for any tracks but they were chasing a bundle of knives. No chance he'd get lost. They came upon a clearing soon. Kakashi couldn't have missed it, the smell of blood was everywhere. There was also more of that purple muscle looking stuff and ooze all over the place. He didn't know what to make of it.

"Goddamn alien baby." Anko said, "birthed right here, yeah?"

Kakashi tilted his head and saw the resemblance. Move those bits over there, gather up the goo; it would make a large if lumpy egg. Those sharp footprints there again, unfortunately too washed over by rain to glean how long they'd been there. "It's… Possible."

"Well what other reason is there?" She nodded towards the largest pile of the stuff. "It's sunk in pretty good far as I can tell. Not moving. Not doing anything. Figure that means it's already done what it's good for."

Kakashi knelt and prodded it with a stick. He felt is best he didn't touch it. "I feel as the highest ranking officer it's my responsibility to discourage any alien theories."

"That's an alien egg if I ever saw one."

"_Or_… Uh." Kakashi grimaced. "Some fleshpile thing. Er… muscle culture escaped from a lab. Mutated slug. Rare fungus. Eh."

"I swear if this thing we're after turns out to be an alien-"

"Escaped… Lab. Creature." Kakashi trailed off and stood. "Shit it's an egg."

"Told you."

"The thing we're after, the thing that took down the Hokage – made an egg."

"I – oh shit. Owl and Boar ran ahead like three hours back, you think they-"

"No scorch marks." Kakashi shook his head. "Not one crater. No; Owl's near as good at tracking as I am so they were definitely here…" He scrutinized his surroundings, looking for some indication that the AnBu they'd momentarily crossed paths with had moved through that clearing. He found none. "Likely, at least…" He turned to the sky, trying to gauge the time through the clouds. "We need to keep moving."

Anko let out a huge sigh. "Lead on."

It was only an hour later, not long after they'd cleared the passing rain that the tracks led to another clearing. There was a cabin, and a small shed out back. Likely a worker's of the small logging site further north. Kakashi didn't bother hiding in the trees, he walked closer in the open between trunks, staying on the patches of grass not sludged over by rain.

Anko landed on an exposed root and hopped to his side. "In there?" She said, voice low.

"No. See there? Cut trunk across the way, it's still moving."

Anko couldn't see a cut anything. "Still? Damn."

"No kidding. Might have stopped here, but not for long."

"Well that's still not good." Anko said.

"No, it's not." Kakashi started towards the cabin, kunai palmed and ready. Anko trailed after, ears and eyes pricked.

They were twenty feet from the door. "I smell blood." Kakashi said. "Lots." They kept pace.

Anko's nose crinkled. "Ah. Me too. And… "she sniffed. "I don't know what that is. Not-blood. Something."

"There's… sulfur. Ammonia. Iron. Mm… Not antiseptics. Is that rubbing alcohol… No, too sweet."

"Rum. _Cheap _rum." Anko frowned. "Blood and piss and rum." They shared a glance.

They were ten feet from the door. "I hear something." Kakashi said.

"Ah. Chewing." Anko palmed another kunai. "Sounds… juicy, eh?"

"Mn." Kakashi nodded. They were in front of the door. They could both hear it clearly now, the squishing and tearing emanating from inside. Kakashi could recognize the rum now. Stuff came by-the-barrel; the loggers likely got a shipment while supplying the docks to the east. They probably didn't drink much; stuff was coarse as gravel. "You ready?"

"No." Anko knew that piss smell. It was the same smell that sunk everywhere down in T&I. It was how Ibiki smelled bless his dirty black heart. "But do it anyway."

Kakashi opened the door silent as a mouse. Light crept in over his back.

It was a very simple interior. Wood and coal-burning stoves, and this far from civilization the light came from candles. He could see a tin of them on the counter, half-opened. He could smell the batch of porridge on the stove, cold and sour from being left out too long. Over by the far window a shattered jug was spread out in thick chunks of porcelain, and the smell of rum came from it. There was a family portrait on that windowsill, full of smiling faces.

There was a woman at the kitchen table, hanging limp in her chair; the fabric over her collarbone was moving like something was wiggling beneath her blouse. A man was keeled over by the stove, chunks missing from him, and there was a little girl in overalls hunched over him, face buried in his shoulder. He could hear her eating, could hear the wet gagging and purring.

"Oh my god… Kakashi…" Anko said, "I'm so _fuckin_ hungry…"

"I know." Kakashi said.

The sound caught the girl's attention, and the she turned from the man. Half her face was a mess, the teeth there hooked and cruel, and there was no light in her good eye. Just wild and cold. There was something else very wrong with her; it took Anko a moment to see it. She let out a shaky breath.

"Kakashi," Anko said. "Her skin it's… loose."

"I see it." He said. "I th-"

The girl's skin bulged and exploded from her tiny frame, chunks of it cast around the cabin in a red mist. She was a mess of flesh and whipping tendrils beneath, like she was made of worms and snakes. She squealed and charged them, tendrils whipping, legs thumping wetly against the floor. Anko was stunned stiff. Kakashi too. Only at the last moment when it was nearly on them did he jerk to life. He shut the door.

_Thump._

_Scratching noises._

Kakashi glanced at Anko. Anko glanced at him.

"I'm going to level with you." Kakashi said. "I was pretty sure that wouldn't work."

"Holy shit." Anko said. "I mean what the holy hell was that? That ain't our guy?"

"No. Unfortunately. The tracks keep going."

"Then…"

Kakashi shrugged helplessly. "I… I have no idea. Some… contagion. Mutagen. Technique-gone-wrong. Could be anything. But it had to have come from our guy. Same as the egg. No doubt. Only question is how and why. I hate not knowing why."

"Wait. Kakashi. You…" Anko paled. "You have some of her blood on you. Your forhead." She grabbed his hand before he could reflexively wipe it off. "No. No, not like that you'll just smear it. I think you should… er, cut it out, you know?"

Kakashi found himself nodding even though he really didn't want to. "No point in testing my luck, huh… Shit. How much we talking?"

"Just a drop."

Kakashi sighed. "Well… Do it."

Anko carefully absorbed the drop with a bit of fabric cut from her skirt, then cut around the dime-sized piece of skin at a sharp angle. When she went to remove the skin with another piece of fabric she had to really tug, and when she pulled it away there were roots poking out the back, wiggling in the air.

"Oh eww _eww _what the fuck!" Anko fidgeted around with it, looking for a safe place to get it away from her hand. Kakashi cringed as he caught sight of it; it and at the feel of warmth oozing down his brow.

"That doesn't bode well for me." He commented as he offered up a small vial from his pockets.

"Shit no kidding." Anko stuffed the flap of skin into the vial and vigorously shook out her hand. "I think I got it at the – uh roots, but."

"Guess we'll know soon enough, huh?" He turned back to the cabin. It had gone quiet while they were occupied. Still he could the labored breathing of that thing waiting by the door. He started bandaging his forehead with the small medkit he kept at his hip. "Now… what to do about that thing."

"We burn the house down."

"No." Kakashi shook his head. "Could just get it airborn. Slim chance, but still."

"We can't just leave that shit out. And we need to keep moving. That whatever we're after _took down the big-guy_ and _ran through the wall_ we can't just-"

"I _know_." Kakashi said. "I know… I j-" His voice cut out and he paled dramatically. "The Hokage was bleeding when he came in." He said. "Wasn't he?"

"Yeah - _oh fuck me_ we have to go back!"

"We've been gone a day - and we're conservatively a few hours behind this thing. If it's going to happen like this it's already happened."

"I… Fuck." Anko turned to the clearing. "Fuck!"

There was nothing for it. Kakashi summoned a dog and sent it back to Konoha with a letter and his vial. They saw it scurry off into the trees, and Anko sighed.

"Move, yeah?"

Kakashi nodded. "Yeah."

Then there came a wail from the cabin, and it only got louder, and when Kakashi was about to cover his ears a _whump _pushed out the windows, and he heard something messy splatter against the inside. Movement caught his eye, and Kakashi looked down at the chittering worms squirming out beneath the door. He and Anko shared a glance; she smacked her lips.

Once the clearing was fully ablaze, and the worms had boiled up and popped like overripe tomatoes, they moved on. Anko was still hungry. Kakashi couldn't feel his forehead. They felt like they were just getting closer and closer to a messy, wormy death.

"Fuck." Kakashi called back to Anko, vaguely.

"I know."

* * *

BREAK

* * *

By the time Naruto found a quiet place to curl up and cry the rain had passed and the world was glossy greens and blues, and it smelled like spring, and she couldn't. She tried. Several times, because in her experience it helped: but these odd, forced groan-like noises came from her, in that weird dual-tone, and she felt like an asshole. The biggest, floppiest asshole. Flopping all over a beautiful rain-fresh day. And the fact that she couldn't cry and felt like an asshole pissed her off.

Snakemantis kept finding woodland creatures to eat, somehow. Every time she looked at it there was a different fluffy creature flopping around in its mouth, and every time it snapped its two-ton-and-still-growing mass to face a different noise whatever poor creature it had in its jaws jerked with it and snapped every bone in its body. It would have been disconcerting if she didn't find it so inexplicably hilarious.

So Naruto sat for ten minutes in the hollow of a lilting tree, trying to cry and feeling like an asshole and snickering against her will as Snakemantis heard a bird and exploded a rabbit, and she told it to _goddamnit stop making me laugh_ and Snakemantis jerked to face her and _kkkkghkpt _went the fawn and she laughed so hard and _hated_ herself, and realized how little she had planned out. No home, no fridge. No bed. She missed her bed already and she hated her bed – damn thing smelled like canned farts from the moment she'd bought it.

Then Naruto couldn't sit still a moment longer. She decided in an instant: she wanted ramen. _Good_ ramen, and she would make that happen. No matter what; by the end of the day, she would have ramen – not enough to puke, just enough to settle her stomach. She started towards where she felt the ocean to be, half-sure she'd find some fishing village or port or something with food if she walked far and long enough, and if not at least she'd have sun-warm sand between her toes.

Foliage browned, trees shrank, sounds of shrieking gulls and rolling waves set comfortably on her shoulders. Snakemantis netted a full grown bear out of seemingly nothing, and it banged and slapped against everything they passed for a mile before it ate it all.

Naruto picked up the pace, and just short of an hour she felt a town beyond the trees. As she drew closer she could see patches of it. It was a small fishing village, no more than a quarter mile long. There were a few houses out on the water, perched on stilts and stacked-stones like fat waterbirds. And closer, along the coast a few shacks were half-sunk in the sand. The smarter places sprung up closer to the treeline, but none of them were big enough for more than a family each.

It wasn't what she'd been hoping for but still Naruto felt it best she give it a chance. Only question was how she wouldn't start a riot. She looked around - and as if summoned from her thoughts there was a clothesline not far from her, sagging beneath blankets and stiff burlap shirts. Naruto knew exactly what to do. She'd-

"Oh holy shit!" Came a cry from behind her.

Naruto turned to the boy fallen-backwards behind them, gaping at Snakemantis, and she gave a curt nod in his direction. "Hey how's it goin."

She turned back to the clothesline and her roiling plot. She'd steal a bedsheet, fashion a makeshift cloak, then at nightfall – "wait oh _goddamnit-"_

Naruto turned around just in time to watch the boy start flailing himself away. "Dude wait!" She called after him, "don't tell-"

"What the fuck oh what the fuck!" He shrieked to anyone, and juked left and right like he'd fake her out. Naruto had to consciously tell Snakemantis not to go nuts, because everything about the situation had set it into target mode. From the corner of her eye she could see glistening spines jutting from its mouth, anxiously waiting for the go.

"We can talk this out!" Naruto called after him. He was making slow progress, tripping and stumbling over everything. Nothing but frantic breathing came back to her. Naruto sighed. "I just want some food!"

"Don't eat me!"

"I'm not gonna eat you!"

"I -Ukgl-" He clotheslined himself on a branch so hard he landed back on his feet. Naruto cringed and sucked a breath through her teeth. He teetered onward, hellbent on running for his life even it killed him in the process. Then he keeled over, face in the dirt.

"Dnullme… plss…oww…"

Naruto sighed. She walked the forty feet he'd managed to get and crouched at his side. "You alright?"

"mnnoooo." He sounded moments from tears.

Naruto sighed heavily and scratched the back of her neck. While she spoke she gestured with her free hand. "I, uh. Look, I just wanted to find some ramen to eat. Okay? And he's-" Naruto turned her head and watched Snakemantis snipe a passing seagull, the force of the spine reducing the bird to a bloody plume of feathers."er – mostly harmless. Uh, ish."

"yyynngnmmm?"

"What?"

"yyyrrnnngnm?"

"Oh – no. I mean, I just want some ramen so I definitely won't."

"Ww-"

"He won't either, promise."

"R-"

"Yes really, now come on, up. Up." Naruto helped him up, and stepped back as he brushed himself off. Now that they were close Naruto saw he had a good foot in height over her, as well as at least four years, but his awkwardness made him small. He looked like an up-and-coming fisherman, she guessed. Heavily tanned, scraggly brown hair curled and coarse with salt. And he had a stupid face, but she could have just been annoyed.

"You good?" Naruto said. Snakemantis came up behind her, towering over them both.

He shook slightly, but nodded. He nodded very quickly. "Yeah – I uh – is that thing gonna eat me?"

"No."

Snakemantis gurgled.

"Probably."

"Ah. Ah okay. I uh." He looked around. "I Gotta… go-"

"Hold up on that." Naruto interrupted. "you live down there?" She nodded towards the fishing village.

"… Yyyyyea?" From his tone he hoped that was the correct answer.

"Do you _actually_ live there?"

"Yeah." Now he sounded pretty sure it was the right answer.

"I'm not trying to trick you or anything, I just have a few questions."

"Yeah."

"… Okay. Uh, do you guys-" '_you guys_,' already Naruto felt a bit stupid, "-have like, er, food stands or something?"

"Uh. No."

"Oh pffft. Well do you guys have restaurants or anything?"

"We fish and eat the fish?"

"I think I see how this is gonna go down. Have you ever heard of ramen?"

"What? No, I guess not."

"… Aww."

"Uh. Sorry."

"Yeah. Well. Not your fault." Naruto huffed for a moment and shook out of her funk. "Well on I go then. Later." She turned.

"Hey, uh-" He paused to gulp air, grapping out in her direction, "wait; are you like, a uh, mercenary or ninja or whatever?"

Naruto sucked her lips. "Dunno. Yes? Why?" Then something pricked in her head, and she could feel things closing in on them a quarter mile off. Three at first, then seven, then there were twenty: and then she knew they were men, they were armed, and they were… strangely not as angry as she'd expect.

"Uh. I may have, er, liberated, some… valuables. From. Some less than reputable… people, and they _might-"_

"You robbed bandits?"

"I – I tempor – _I relieved - _okay yes I may have robbed some bandits."

"Why did you do that. _How_ did you do that. Are they shitty bandits?"

"Wh – hey come on, I can be sneaky if I try. I just-"

"Hey I'm not here to judge, man." But she totally was.

"Look, can I just… Hire you? To help me make this situation better?" Snakemantis exploded another passing seagull and the boy collapsed in on himself like a dying star.

Naruto tilted her head. "You want me to do… what, exactly. Kill them?"

"No. _No_, just… scare them off?"

She shook her head. "And then what? They never return? How much did you take?"

He reached into his back pocket. From the look on his face he found nothing and really _shouldn't have_, then he went stiff and looked around sharply. "Oh shit."

Then the first bandit burst into the clearing. "_Found you_ you thieving son of a what the _fuck_ is that thing!"

The second followed shortly. "Hey did you catch th – what the fuck is that thing?"

"What the fuck are you guys _screaming_ ab – what the fuck!"

Naruto said "Oh this is fantastic."

"Hey Taki what are you guys yellin – whatthe_fuck_-"

"Guys I told you this kid was fuckin' gross lookin' but – hey what the FUCK-"

"Did Taki shit his pants again? Oh. Hey wait what's that thing."

"You." Naruto pointed at the first man to not scream. "Come here. We will have words."

* * *

BREAK

* * *

"_How did this happen."_

A halfhour later Naruto was sitting in a bandit circle. That's what she was calling it at least. They were all sitting around a fire, and a bandit was passing around ladles of warm gloop from a cooking pot. She could smell the ocean still, but they were far enough from the gulls to hear each other talk.

One with long black hair was trying to juggle hunting knives and was about two fumbles away from passing out. Another was sharpening a makeshift harpoon; genuinely and thoroughly like that was a regular occurrence. The one she'd spoken to sat a little off from the group, him an another were talking quietly among themselves, and they kept gesturing at her.

Naruto glanced down at her soup. She turned a spoon of it over, watched the various chunky bits plunk down into the bowl. "I don't think I want this in me." She said and eyed the impromptu chef. "What's in this stuff?"

He stared at her for a moment, and after that moment tried not to because he looked everywhere but in her direction. "Uh, water, potatoes, I think Taki caught a seagull, uh some flour? An egg -"

"I get the picture thank you." Naruto would not be eating it. She held the bowl over her shoulder for Snakemantis to consider. It leaned in, throwing her and a few others into shadows for a moment, but turned the soup away and slithered out into the brush. Then Naruto just dropped the bowl over her shoulder, because fuck it. Fuck soup. The chef flinched away in bitter tears as she turned to face the man she'd spoken to earlier.

"Hey, you." At least three men turned to her. "No, I mean… Him. _You_." She pointed. The man in question pointed at himself.

"Yeah? What?"

"How… Like, I can't remember how or why I got here. Did you mind-trick me?"

"Only a little." He said, "S'why I'm here. I'm the persuasive guy."

"Okay. But. Hey, did you let that kid go?"

"Who, him?" He pointed to the fisherman-to-be, who'd been thus-far completely obscuring himself by hiding behind foliage, his own soup bowl, and conveniently timed passing bandits. "He's with us."

"He tried to hire me to kill you."

"I didn't say he _wanted_ to be with us." The man looked over at the kid, "ain't that right Taki?"

"Ain't what right?" The chef said.

"No – I'm talking to Taki."

"I am Taki."

"You're not Taki. The kid's Taki."

"Shit, _he's_ Taki? I thought I was Taki."

"Why you guys keep callin' my name?" A burly man called from across the fire.

"Who the fuck are you." The persuasive guy said. "I have literally never seen you before."

Naruto said "Are you guys for real?"

"Wait do we have four Taki's?" The persuasive guy said, "Is this happening? Are we fucking idiots? This is not okay."

"Hey idiot." Naruto called. The persuasive guy turned to her. "What's your name?"

"I thought it was Taki until like two minutes ago. Shit my whole fuckin' life's unraveling before my eyes."

"Hey were you guys calling my name earlier?"

"Get outa here!"

Naruto was about to comment on the surprising level of incompetence. Then she felt a pinprick again, and a second; far away in the forest and closing fast. It happened like she were watching a game from above, she saw them; a man, a woman. Two circles approaching her.

If she strained she could hear them; and so she knew that they were there to kill her, and she knew that there was nothing she could say to change their minds. Snakemantis shot off to intercept them. The three circles met. She heard the clash. A cry echoed through the clearing and the bandits went silent. There were two circles left now; Snakemantis and the woman.

Then there was just Snakemantis. Naruto stood without preamble and started towards it, no one followed or commented.

Snakemantis was waiting for her. There was a tanto jutting from its back, its left mandible hung limp and bloodied, and half its side was singed an even angrier red, the dirt around it charred black. A man was spread around the clearing. There was a woman nailed to a tree across from her. A handful of spikes sunk through her chest and into the trunk, thick and unyielding like rebar. She had a hand around one of them, the other hung at her side. She was still breathing but it was shallow and wet, and her Owl mask – slick with blood slipped from her face as Naruto approached.

The woman just twitched and gurgled there like a half-squished bug. It'd all happened so quickly, and irreversibly, and that Snakemantis had managed to take them out so effortlessly only made it that more regrettable. At least give them a good death. But they were dead and Naruto didn't know what to say.

So she said: "…You're from home, aren't you." The woman tried to speak and couldn't. "You were after me. And, I'm sorry it's come to this. And I'm sorry that you ended up dead in this shitty forest. And I'm sorry that we couldn't talk this out. And we couldn't. You know it."

The woman died. Her head sunk down and rested on the spikes, and her hand fell down to her side.

"And I'm sorry that… I can't go back anymore, can I."

* * *

_an: guys I jumped the shark. also I'd make a good politician, or so I've been told. Anyway, sorry about the inactivity. Been butthurt about life and stuff. See ya later._


End file.
